


as you wish

by owlinaminor



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, The Princess Bride - Freeform, True Love's Kiss, season 3b speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 03:37:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1289800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That day, she was amazed to discover that when he was saying “As you wish”, what he meant was, “I love you.” And even more amazing was the day she realized she truly loved him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	as you wish

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for verycaptainmuchswan on Tumblr (my CS Secret Shipmate) in honor of the fact that NEW EPISODE TODAY! AND ANOTHER ONE NEXT WEEK! AND THE WEEK AFTER! THE HIATUS IS OVER!
> 
> Sorry, I'll stop flailing about and get to the actual story. Enjoy!
> 
> (Also, you could maybe view this as a companion piece to 'put your weapons down' because I used a lot of the same headcanons, and filled in some parts that I wrote about in that fic. Not that that's required reading for this fic, or anything.)

> _That day, she was amazed to discover that when he was saying “As you wish”, what he meant was, “I love you.” And even more amazing was the day she realized she truly loved him back.  
> _ \- The Princess Bride

“As you wish.”

The first time he says it, she almost laughs.

It’s so ridiculous, to her – here he is, this man who is not only _a_ pirate but _the_ pirate, Captain Hook straight out of a storybook (but much more attractive,) and he behaves like a gentleman.

Pirates pillage, don’t they?  Pirates prey on merchants, prey on women, prey on heroes.  They don’t offer their hands (and hooks) in assistance, bow in respect, act like gentlemen.  Even if this man is acting ironically (as she sometimes suspects), there’s still an undercurrent of reality, as though he wants to gain her trust in spite of himself.  It surprises her – _he_ surprises her.

(It shouldn’t, really.  After all, nobody in Storybrooke is who he seems at first glance – why should a one-handed pirate with a drinking problem be any different?)

* * *

 

“Hook, can you collect firewood?”  “As you wish.”  “Hook, take second watch.”  “As you wish.”  “Hook, for God’s sake, give me some space.”  “As you wish.”

She catches him watching her sometimes, in Neverland.  She’ll be explaining a plan or asking for suggestions and he will be so focused – eyes, head, heart turned ever so slightly toward her.  Neal watches her, too, of course – but Neal is different.  Neal watches her like a defense attorney, attempting to discern which way the jury is leaning before making his opening statements.  But the pirate (and she’s starting to think of him less as “the pirate” and more as “Killian,” which she doesn’t care to dwell on) watches her like a sailor scanning the sea, worshipping its power and putting his life in its hands.

He’s not deceitful – he’s loyal.  (Or he’s becoming loyal, for her.)

* * *

It’s so hard for her to let go.

He kisses her hungrily, desperately, as though these are the best moments of his humble existence and he’ll burn if she pulls back, singed in bruise marks left where she grabbed him, seized him – almost out of instinct, or maybe something else.  His fingers in her hair, her lips on fire, their foreheads melded together – and this feels right, so right, as though he was ice and she is melting, taste of rum and ocean and electricity running up her veins, opposite charges attract and she could be the positive to his negative or the negative to his positive, it doesn’t matter nothing matters there is nothing nothing else only _this_ –

She gasps.

He follows her almost unconsciously, but she stops him.  If she let him too close again, who knows how hot she’d burn.  (This ice took too long to build to let it all dissolve now.)

“What was that?”

“A one-time thing.”

His face falls, eyes closing for one painful moment, and she pretends not to notice.

“Don’t follow me.  Wait five minutes, go get some firewood or something.”

“As you wish,” he says.  His voice is low, husky, like late nights and warm beds and moon shining through the window.

* * *

“Look, both of you, just leave me alone.”

She’s only had a few days of this love triangle bullshit, and already she’s tired of it.  She’s not some wide-eyed girl in a romance movie – sure, twelve-year-old Emma would have loved the attention, but twenty-nine-year-old Emma thinks the attention should be on saving her son.  Fighting will get them nowhere.  If anything, it’ll make it easier for Pan to attack them.

She makes sure to stare directly into his too-blue eyes when he answers: “As you wish.”

He walks away slowly, his footsteps a quiet drumbeat on the forest floor.  Neil stays and makes endless apologies, saying that of _course_ Henry should be the top priority, he doesn’t deny that, but couldn’t she just give him a chance – but Killian is gone so quickly, she couldn’t have called him back even if she had wanted to.

* * *

 

She glances back before stepping into her car.

His words ring in her ears – _not a day will go by that I don’t think of you_ – like a cushion for her to fall upon, a guarantee that she will be remembered, even though she won’t remember herself.  She doesn’t quite believe him – she isn’t a great heroine deserving of his adoration, just a lost girl who grew up too fast struggling to keep her family together, and he will find someone else and the happiness he could never have with her – but it’s a nice thought.  It’s comforting.  Maybe her subconscious will remember him and she won’t have as many nightmares.

She glances back, and her parents are embracing, her mother’s face turned into her father’s shoulder.  (And she feels so guilty, suddenly, for thinking of herself when she should be thinking of them.)  It took so long to find them and now she’s losing them again, and – they need to stay safe.  They need to.  If she can’t have them, they need to at least have each other.

The plea is wordless.  _Take care of them for me_ , she implores, cloudy hazel eyes meeting sky blue.  _Take care of them.  Protect them, because I can’t.  Please._

He gives the slightest nod.  _As you wish._

They’ve always been able to understand each other without speaking but this is – this is different.  More powerful.  He barely knows her yet knows her so well at the same time, and she wants – she isn’t sure what, but something.  She doesn’t want to go.

But she _has_ to go.  So she pushes _as you wish_ to the back of her mind, climbs into her car, and starts the engine. 

* * *

 

“Take a leap of faith,” he says.

He cuts an intriguing figure, all sharp edges and dark colors with his long, leather coat.  Something hums in her heart when she looks at him (when he looks at her, as though he can’t quite believe she’s real) and her lie detector hasn’t gone off since he first knocked on her door, but she ignores it.  She ignores it.  He’s delusional, he’s not part of her world, and he’s not welcome.

He’s (not) welcome.

“Look,” she tells him, “in my business, we don’t take leaps of faith.  We rely on cold, hard evidence, and so far, you’ve yet to present me with any, so I’m not drinking from any strange bottles.”

He sighs, eyes dropping to the sidewalk.  “As you wish.”

Something inside her drops, a conductor’s baton signifying the downbeat and now her heartbeat is accelerating – allegro, vivace, presto.

“What did you say?”

He looks up at her, eyes wide and hopeful and so very blue.  “As you wish.”

“Alright, fine,” she hears herself say, almost as though she’s stepped outside her body and is watching as somebody else takes control, moves her closer to him, and grabs the little bottle in his outstretched hand.

The potion tastes like rum and ocean.

* * *

 

Other people start to notice.

“As you wish,” he says at the diner when she insists he try the lasagna – Ruby pauses en route to the kitchen, eyes wide.  (“Did he saw what I think he said?” she hisses when Killian heads to the bathroom.  Emma sighs.  “Yeah.”  “You know, if Victor said that to _me_ , I’d have him up against the wall in three seconds flat,” Ruby says, grinning suggestively.  “But this is different!” Emma protests.  “He hasn’t even _seen_ the Princess Bride.”  Ruby only raises an eyebrow, unconvinced.)

“As you wish,” he yells across the apartment when she tells him to hurry up or they’ll leave without him – Snow glances at Emma, then Killian, then back to Emma, realization dawning on her face.  (“He really likes you,” she says later over cinnamon-topped hot chocolate.  Emma makes a noncommittal noise.  “Reminds me of David, when I first met him.”  “I know what you’re hinting at,” Emma replies, “and I’m not buying it.  Maybe, if we defeat the witch ... I don’t know.”)

“As you wish,” he exclaims between chuckles in response to her demand for no more pranking at the sheriff’s office – Henry looks up from his comic book, carefully examines her glare-barely-concealing-a-grin.  (“You know, Mom, a pirate for a stepdad would be really cool,” the kid tells her the next morning on their way to his bus stop.  She stops in the middle of the sidewalk.  “Where did _that_ come from?”  He shrugs, and answers, “Just saying.”)

If other people are noticing, then it must be really obvious.  She should tell him to stop.

But she doesn’t.

* * *

 

“Stay out of the way!” she shouts at him.

The final battle has begun, their tiny team against an endless army of the Witch’s minions.  It is like a great roar, this battle – full of sound and fury.  And she wants him safe

“As you wish,” he calls back.

But he doesn’t quite keep his word – he tries to, he does, but these people are his people now, and he isn’t about to let them (let _her_ ) get hurt, not while there is still breath in his body.

And the witch brings her sword of green down on his head, and his body falls to the ground with a hollow thud.

* * *

 

But it is only minutes, and then she is kissing him.

The kiss rocks the world, for just a second.  There is a wave of light pulsing out from where they meet – and he begins to kiss back.  He presses closer to her, brings a hand up to cradle her face, can’t bring himself to let her go.

“Don’t you _dare_ do that again,” she whispers.  Her tone is angry, but her eyes are shining.  (They won, didn’t they?  They won, they won, she kissed him.)

“As you wish,” he says, laughing.

She reaches to kiss him again.

* * *

 

“Hey, can you toss me my car keys?”

It’s an innocent enough request – it’s eight A.M., she’s almost late for work, and the keys are closer to him at the dining room table than her by the door.  He doesn’t pick them up immediately, though – instead he pauses, grins.

“As you wish ... _Princess Buttercup_.”

She turns and stares at him, frozen with her hand halfway to the doorknob.  “When ... When did you watch that movie?” she manages after a moment.

“With Henry, yesterday,” he replies.  “He told me it was important, and it wasn’t hard for me to figure out why.”

“As you wish,” she repeats, so quietly it’s almost a whisper.  She remembers watching that movie with a foster mother, in the first few weeks before everything turned sour.  And she remembers wondering what it would feel like, to be Buttercup – to be loved unconditionally and permanently, to experience an emotion that can stretch across oceans and transcend death.

“Emma?  What’s wrong?”  He’s at her side in the space between shaky breaths, cupping her face with a gentle hand.  He holds her as though she’s some fragile, precious thing, and it would kill him if she shattered.

She shakes her head, says, “Nothing, it’s just ... Different.  When you know what it means.”

“Emma.”  It comes out as a sigh, or a breath, or a prayer.  He rubs slow circles into her cheek, leans in, presses their foreheads together.  “It’s _always_ meant I love you.  Even when I didn’t know it.”

It’s still so hard for her to believe, sometimes, that he really does love her – and even thinking that, the words are so clear in her mind but have this shimmering intangibility, like a wish or a dream.  But he reminds her, he always reminds her, and the broken pieces of her heart are sewn a few more stitches closer every day.

She doesn’t have the words to thank him, not yet – so she lets a smile spread across her face, reaches up to place her hand over his.

“As you wish,” he repeats quietly.

When she kisses him, it isn’t the best kiss of all time, it isn’t Buttercup and Westley in the field at sunset, but it’s hers and his – and she likes to think that, maybe, it comes close.

* * *

 

Their daughter is tiny enough to fit in the crook of his elbow, but filled with enough enthusiasm to power a fleet.  She has auburn hair, eyes like the sky after a storm, and her parents wrapped around her little finger.

“You can’t have ice cream _now_ , it’s the middle of the afternoon!” Emma says, crossing her arms and staring at the wide-eyed girl in the middle of their kitchen.

“But _Mom_ -my,” the girl whines.  She flails with her arms, indicating that the heat is unbearable and she simply cannot go another minute without ice cream.

And her mother’s expression softens.  “Alright, little princess.  As you wish.”

And her daughter smiles, and Killian fears his heart might burst out of his chest.


End file.
